1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains generally to devices for recording and playing back of media content, and more particularly to automatically transferring content between devices connected over a network, and restoring content subsequent to user deletion.
2. Description of Related Art
Media devices such as personal video recorders (PVRs), digital video recorders (DVRs), set-top-boxes (STBs), Web TV systems, and the like are increasingly incorporating random data storage units, in particular hard disk drives, allowing media content to be retained and accessed as desired. The capacity of these disk drives often allows a large number of programs and full-length motion pictures to be retained. The term PVR, or video recording device, will be utilized herein to refer to all such described media devices having random access storage capability upon which media content can be recorded and retained.
As the disk becomes full of recorded content, additional content can not be recorded until some content is either deleted, moved to another device, or transferred off the unit onto a removable media. If the PVR is configured for timed recording, the system will be unable to record the scheduled programming. On current video recorders the user needs to delete elements of the existing content prior to the recording of additional content to free sufficient video content space upon which additional video content may be recorded.
When content is marked for deletion on a PVR, the actual content may be erased or the storage allocations remapped to free the content space for other content. When mistakes are made in marking content for deletion on current video recorders, the deleted content can not be “undeleted”. Examples of content deletion “mistakes” include a user inadvertently selecting the wrong content for deletion, a spouse or family member deleting content important to the individual, or the content being automatically deleted in response to the lapse of retention time period, or other retention control parameter.
Therefore, a need exists for systems and methods that overcome problems associated with content recording and deletion as outlined above. The present invention satisfies those needs, as well as others, and overcomes the deficiencies of previously developed personal video recording systems.